Finding your voice

VoIP communication solutions are increasingly on business users’ radar. CXO sat down with Phil Male of Thus, Interoute’s Mathew Finnie and Tim Thaxter of Siemens to take the temperature of the industry.

CXO. VoIP communications are experiencing major growth. What are the benefits of this technology for both business and consumers? Does the increased use of the technology present particular challenges?
PM. The widespread deployment of VoIP is transforming the way in which people choose to communicate. In the business community, VoIP adoption is on the increase because of the cost savings it presents, particularly large corporates that have multiple office locations. It is widely acknowledged that converging business traffic (email, voice, video and data) over one network makes integrated communications easier and more streamlined. VoIP not only promotes cost efficiency but also facilitates communication among staff, regardless of their location. The benefits extend to the support of remote and flexible working. Because a VoIP number travels with its user, individual employees can be contacted through any available IP connection. Used in this way, VOIP can contribute significantly to the creation of a more dynamic, unified and productive workforce.

However, it is important that businesses understand what type of VoIP solution they need: a consumer type offering such as VoIP on DSL using the public internet isn’t suitable for the corporate world. VoIP calls will be affected by bandwidth restrictions because they are not prioritised, there are potential security issues and the associated support requirements and costs will be much higher with this approach rather than an integrated solution. For these reasons, organisations should use VoIP applications that are specifically designed for the business environment; solutions that can protect the user against potential risks and also maximise the business benefits gained from utilising converged services.

Combining VoIP with a Virtual Private Network (VPN) results in a secure voice connection, providing dedicated bandwidth that maintains the quality of the voice calls and allows traffic prioritisation specific to a business’ requirements. It also enables an organisation to make maximum use of the VPN by running multiple services over the same infrastructure. Furthermore, IT managers can also take small steps that have a big impact on the security of the VoIP call. Installing up-to-date virus scanners and clearly defining a company’s acceptable usage policy can all go a long way to ensure that the network remains safe.

TT. There are numerous benefits across the board. For business there are reduced communication costs and increased efficiency levels. The platform also allows for greater flexibility and access to a far greater range of services such as on demand software.

For the consumer it offers wide range of services such as quad play. There are also considerably lower call costs. In fact, due to intense competition in the market, calls can even be free.

Of course there are major challenges. For business it’s about transformation: where will the impact will be greater and how do we manage the change and train the end users.

MF. Cost, choice, flexibility and scope for integration with other resources within the enterprise. The list of benefits is endless. The key innovation is that VoIP can be integrated into other forms of communication, and the workplace itself, with a myriad of applications and devices. From a commercial perspective the compelling message is that there is no need for wholesale changes in technology. On the contrary, VoIP implemented correctly is the ideal platform for migrating communications off proprietary platforms and making a less risky and costly model for building services.

CXO. What new and emerging technologies are driving change in the communications industry? How are quality, speed and reliability issues being addressed?
PM. Next-generation networks (NGNs) are already transforming the way businesses communicate today and will ultimately revolutionise how communication services are delivered in the future. NGNs take a converged approach to network services: all types of network traffic – whether it’s voice, video or data – are transmitted across the same network, simplifying the network and communications infrastructure enormously. A few years ago, communications tended to be simple. Desktop phones linked to voice network and computers linked to a data network with little sharing of information or resources. The need to simplify and make the whole thing more flexible and cost-effective is the driving force behind NGN solutions.

The big change is that access speeds to central resources on a Virtual Private Network, across the wide area network, are now able to operate seamlessly at the same or greater speeds as the local area network. This fundamentally changes the way corporate networks can be architectured. It is now just as quick to access a file server in the local office as it is to access a centralised data storage system. With NGNs these resources appear to the user in the same way that local network services do. The advent of converged services changes the way IT managers think about their network architecture, where and how they put network resources and also how they maximise business process benefits by making these resources more available to the entire corporate body.

NGNs also offer tangible benefits for reliability and resilience. This type of network is particularly well suited for time-sensitive applications such as video and voice and offers guaranteed service levels that simply wouldn’t have been possible using older technology.

TT. The growth of mobility is a major factor driving change in the industry. It is becoming increasingly normal for companies to wirelessly access data and applications.  – wireless access to company data and applications. Addressing the speed and security concerns, 3G networks offer extremely quick, wide and safe coverage.

MF. SIP as a standard - hopefully to remain untainted by vendors trying to steer us back to a world of proprietary systems! This has happened in our wholesale world. We had an intense 18 months of interoperability development (2004-6) and most of the issues are now resolved. This has lead to two very exciting developments: ENUM or simply the ability to map calls between the online world and the very substantial PSTN/mobile networks; and fixed mobile convergence managing transport sessions between WiFi, GSM and fixed IP. The latter enables greater mobility not only physically but between device types.

On the issue of reliability, much of the wholesale infrastructure with which we route calls is increasingly IP based. The issue is not the vendor platforms but the transport the media uses. If you use the public internet there could be issues that affect quality and reliability (and even speed if peering is against you), but large pan-continental managed platforms mitigate this. Given the global carriers have faith in them I think current VoIP fears are just an issue of maturity in understanding and implementations, not the technology itself.

CXO. Given the differing needs of consumers do increasingly complicated communications solutions offer sufficient flexibility?
PM. NGNs promise a more simplified communications world, almost a plug and play scenario. As technologies develop and as telecoms companies roll out new networks, then the socket on the wall should become almost universal, and ‘plugging’ into the internet will be just as simple as plugging into the mains supply.

Today’s technologies allow this, but the service offerings are not yet mature enough to make it seamless to the consumer. They will get there.

TT. Most operators and vendors recognise the differing needs of users. Consequently, they package solutions appropriately so that consumers can purchase the services relevant to their lifestyle.

MF. This is the wonderful thing about VoIP, the session model is very clean and therefore the enterprise or consumer variants use the same basic elements. Only the implementations and the service wraps are different. I think if the solution appears complicated it’s probably wrong or someone is trying to do it all in one box, which is hard. If you look at a consumer or enterprise solution you will see huge commonality in the core functionality even up to the session layer.

The benefits of VoIP at the wholesale level are well illustrated by the Interoute Virtual Voice Network (VVN) platform. The VVN provides managed soft Switch partitioning and the Arena commission free trading exchange to carriers globally. The underlying call is the same, the delivery is sometimes the same, it’s the service wrap on top that defines it. The customer benefits by not having to rely on physical interconnects, having a point to multipoint infrastructure rather than a point to point set up and getting better utilisation of bandwidth. We do the complicated technology (the migration path from your existing platform to our next generation platform) you manage the minutes.

CXO. With so many different devices in use in the workplace, what is being done to successfully integrate information systems? What are the main difficulties associated with seamlessly linking such a range of software and hardware?
PM. Traditionally, IT services tended to be fairly disparate. Devices carried their own networking requirements. There were local area networks, serial cables, phone wiring, wide area network cables, wireless LANS, PDAs that plug into a different port on the PC, or into cradles and so on (just look in that bottom draw and see how many different cables you have accumulated over the years!). The world is changing, the USB port now offers an almost universal connection between local devices. The ethernet port with NGNs provides a universal connection to the IP network, wireless and mobile data communications replace the physical connection but still provide access to the same standardised IP network.

At the software level, the mass adoption of IP based technologies has seen an almost universal movement to supporting common IP-based data interchange formats such as XML and information transmission protocols such as HTTP. As these standards become universally accepted in business applications, one of the last big barriers to allowing information and content to flow freely between users, no matter what device they happen to be on, will be removed.

TT. IT and communication vendors committed to open standards (SOA) will help drive a simpler and easier integration into the workplace. Difficulties arise where legacy applications are important and middleware needs to be written to deliver the business value across the device domain.

MF. Most workplaces have a single repository of all employees. This is the unified source of information for all services and was long ago recognised as the place to home communication services. The hurdles to getting at it are hindered by the traditional approach to communications but with VoIP these can be addressed. We have successfully integrated services into enterprises this way directly or through partners. Devices in the workplace will increasingly be independent from the systems that they are talking to so we have found the open approach to be simple and effective. The trouble starts when every device manufacturer thinks they need to build a suitable directory resource. This is not the case and simply holds back integration.

CXO. Security issues are a major concern at the moment. What measures are used on next generation communication networks safeguard sensitive data and systems?
PM. The transport of data across any environment is inherently insecure. IP based networks are no more or less secure than any other technology. The problem is that as standards are adopted and more and more devices are connected, more and more opportunities exist for mistakes in configuration, application and security model failures, or even hardware faults that can be exploited. Any business needs to think about security on its networks. In the same way that the security guard sits at the entrance to the building, so the firewall sits at the entrance to the network.

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), next-generation networks and solutions designed for business applications are built with this in mind. Traffic segregations, encryption, physical diversity, firewalls and authentication systems are all pretty standard features in any business VPN application, no matter what the application may be. And there are many, many more layers of security that can be built in if the environment demands it. 

TT. Security is multi faceted, covering network security like firewalls and IDS, plus product security such as OS hardening and penetration testing. The key areas are making authentication access to the network as automated as possible while also integrating security policies that prevents users from accessing un-authorised applications and servers.

MF. The security concerns with VOIP are no different from any other IP based service. Security is a big area and needs to be thought of by issue. Revenue protection has been the issue that has exercised most carriers and has been addressed through technologies like Session border controllers along with their existing revenue assurance systems; to the extent that billions of minutes are now settled on VoIP based platforms.

VOIP as a source of vulnerabilities into the enterprise is one which exercises the security community but again well managed and architected solutions can mitigate this. Given the prevalence of Skype and other IM clients the same rules apply.

The issue that I think probably worrying many without justification is people listening into a call. Intercept of TDM is a far more developed area and both compared to mobile are way down the list of insecure forms of communication

CXO. What do you think will be the biggest developments in the communications industry over the coming months and years?
PM. In the future, innovation will be inextricably linked with the increase in next-generation networks. It will not stop at the point at which your communications service provider plugs you into their network. It stretches all the way through your own organisation’s network, to every device in every building, regardless of location. The ultimate vision for next-generation networks is a single type of network cable at each desktop – plug it into a phone and it’s a phone line, plug it into a computer and it’s networking and internet, plug it into whatever device you want and it’ll provide the right services.

Next-generation networks have already started to change the way businesses operate and over the coming months and years, we'll see more bundling of services, more services running over the same network and a wider range of advanced applications becoming available. That will change the way businesses operate. However, the application frameworks and data sharing models currently in use will need to adapt to accommodate these advances in communications technology.

This will facilitate smarter core networks as services currently on the network edge, such as disk storage, backup, database servers and mail platforms, can be reached just as easily in the core as in the local office. There will be a movement of services which are currently provided at the edge of the network into the core and they may well transition onto a shared infrastructure provided by the communications company rather then just centrally hosted by the organisation.

TT. Bandwidth is going to become a commodity and business workflow applications with integrated presence and collaboration will drive change in the large enterprise. New software and communication hosted services are going to deliver similar solutions for the small and medium-sized enterprises.

MF. Final realisation that next generation services are independent of the underlying transport infrastructure.

We are at the tipping point (10 plus years after the inception) where increasingly we are seeing people understand that the preconditions of traditional communications no longer need be followed. A soft phone and mobile phone works for some, whereas others simply want their PBX to send calls to each at zero cost. Mobile has shown that communication is not just fixed voice, but text and mobility. Customers don't have to make expensive decisions or have big projects. You can start small and grow your communication service step by step. For example you can start using our corporate VoIP solution Interoute One for as little as €5, there’s no need to change any existing infrastructure or PBX and as it can be set up in 10 minutes it’s perfect for a Friday afternoon project. Once tested at this level it can be quickly and simply scaled up to a company wide solution.

Phil Male is Chief Operating Officer of THUS plc with overall operational responsibility for network, service, sales and marketing. He joined a predecessor company originally as technical director of Demon Internet Limited in October 1997. Phil has previous experience as technical director of Computer Newspaper Services and PA Data Design, part of the Press Association Group. He also held the positions of head of research and development and, prior to joining Demon, director of strategic research with the Press Association Group. With advanced knowledge of data networking technologies, programming languages and operating systems, Mr Male has been involved in the development of internet services in the UK since 1990. 

Tim Thaxter has 20 years industry experience and has spent the last 9 years with Siemens Enterprise Communications where he has held various senior positions including Product Management voice & data, Strategic relationships with 3Com/Newbridge, Head of Communication Platforms, Head of Applications and HiPath 8000 Business Manager. Thaxter is now the Senior Global Marketing Manager for the HiPath 8000, Siemens Enterprise Communications flagship product.

Matthew Finnie is CTO of Interoute and drives the company’s advanced services strategy, including developing the platform that has allowed the company to launch its industry-leading VOIP, Ethernet and Media products. Trained as an electrical engineer, he helped develop early IP-product innovations, including one of the first commercial applications of VOIP a decade ago. As head of the Enterprise Service Development Group at Vocaltec, he worked with European/US carriers and multinational corporations to launch converged communication services. Finnie was also the co-founder of US-based Internet start-up Insitu, which developed real-time IP collaboration tools. Finnie has degrees in electrical and electronic engineering and marketing.